When Netflix Buys Warner

Portals, not channels, and the new operating systems for culture

The ink on this one is barely dry and the real work is only just beginning. Netflix has said it plans to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and Max / HBO business for something in the neighborhood of $80 billion, with the old cable networks spun out into a separate company called Discovery Global and a long, noisy regulatory process ahead. If it closes, Netflix will be the fourth corporate owner of Warner in roughly fifteen years, after Time Warner, AT&T, and Warner Bros. Discovery. It is the kind of deal that sends everyone to the same checklist: price, breakup fee, who overpaid, who gets fired.

All of that matters but none of it is the real story. Open your TV tonight and imagine the Netflix app looks the same. Same red N. Same rows. Same frictionless scroll. Only now, behind that icon, sit Netflix originals, HBO, Warner Bros films, DC, Harry Potter, Looney Tunes, Adult Swim, and a century of studio muscle that used to belong to somebody else.

That is the actual headline under the he…